Is screenshotting the firmware GUI possible without an external capture card?

Framework Laptop 16
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I ask because I’d like to provide a 1:1-resolution screenshot for github.com/FrameworkComputer/SoftwareFirmwareIssueTracker/issues/new?template=laptop-issue.md, [1] and the undermentioned demonstrates that it might be possible: [2]

  1. SoftwareFirmwareIssueTracker/blob/416479f87857fc5be4e921fe7695b75ebf740aff/.github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/laptop-issue.md#screenshots ↩︎

  2. superuser.com/revisions/1862452/4 ↩︎

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What I’ve seen in many BIOS questions on the community forum is an imperfect picture. No, it looks like the BIOS doesn’t have a screenshot hotkey.

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@sounds, thanks. Filed without one, then:

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Interesting. Your issue report is specifically about the resolution shown in the BIOS screens, so it makes sense a screenshot would be ideal.

I’m a lowly community denizen, so I’m curious why you need the full 2560x1600 resolution? To see more details in some of the screens?

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@sounds, I’m a little myopic, so having clear text helps. :sweat_smile:

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This allows you to take screenshots.

I posted a response on GitHub.

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Here’s some translated instructions from the Russian blog post:

Status display:

we’ll display the status of the graphical console directly through the graphical console, displaying a small square of the appropriate color in the upper left corner of the screen. A white square will mean “driver loaded successfully,” yellow means “file system with write access not found,” blue means “the screenshot of the current console is completely black, there’s no point in saving it,” red means “an error occurred,” and finally, green means “the screenshot has been taken and saved.” This square needs to be displayed on all consoles, and after a short period of time, the piece of image that was erased by it needs to be restored.

…

On my AMI systems, there’s only one graphical console, so I see a flashing green square and get one screenshot with a single press of the combination. On my Phoenix and Insyde systems, there are two graphical consoles, one of which is empty, so I see a blue square first, then a green one, and still only get one screenshot. The test results from the UEFI Shell on these systems look the same, only the resolution is no longer 800x600, but 1366x768.

How would it be integrated into the Framework BIOS to get screenshots?

add our driver along with the dependencies section to the DXE volume of the firmware using UEFITool

Yep, there’s not much there and it boils down to flashing a custom BIOS you modded yourself. Definitely not going to work for Intel boards with Boot Guard as Intel mandated to Framework.

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From the readme

Load it from UEFI Shell with load command

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Not for what we need it for in this thread, unfortunately. That will let you take screenshots of the EFI shell only.

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@sounds, that’s my comprehension of the tool, too; thanks. I’ve added that to my (aforecited) Stack Exchange answer. @Daniel_Schaefer, if you can confirm this, would you accept another issue requesting that Framework’s firmware support screenshot functionality, or do you consider this to be the purview of an external capture device?

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For the issue you raised, we don’t need a screenshot. It looks the same on our side - we’re aware of the issue.
Please refer to my response on github for details.

Not for what we need it for in this thread, unfortunately. That will let you take screenshots of the EFI shell only.

It registers a hotkey and then you can screenshots anywhere in UEFI, not just the shel. I’ll try it again

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@Daniel_Schaefer, I merely meant that it was a demonstration of when the feature is of use. I’ve desired it other times, as have others, but it is a niche use case.

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It works fine. I made it build on Github actions: GitHub - JohnAZoidberg/CrScreenshotDxe at gh-actions

You load this onto a filesystem with a uefi shell and you run the command load fs0:CrScreenshotDxe.efi which then installs the hotkey. Then you can run exit to go back to to the main UEFI screen.

Then you press CTRL+ALT+F12 and you get a screenshot on your disk.

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Happy to be wrong on this!

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Could this be modified to include audio output (text-to-speech, screen reader) for visually impaired and blind users?

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